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2017/08/30

Last night I had a bit of a play with my now complete travel kit watercolor palette! It's filled with some traditional new old stock Schminke, Pfeiffer Arts Watercolors (gifted to me by a lovely friend) and Cloves and Honey Shimmering watercolors and I am loving this palette. It is a joy to use them and I do love the Princeton brush to work with so I might just tuck it in my pen pouch as an add on to my traveling kuretake water brush which is also coming with me.

The bee I colored in is part of a contest organized by Tori Weyers at Drawriot and she shared her lovely bee drawing with us and if you color it in and repost in Instagram, you´re in the running to win a 1/2 pan of Portland Pink Shimmering watercolor by Cloves and Honey. They are partnering up for this amazing City and Sea class and if I didn't have so much else going on, I would have signed up. But I do desire the Portland pink color so much, and this little bee is so cute I decided to have a go and join the fun contest.

But gosh it was a pain to have it printed on watercolor paper though! My printer just wouldn't have it but in the end, it did work out! Also I am pleased to see that my inkjet printer ink seemed to be water and smudge proof! Hurrah for that test coming through well!

Talking about giveaways, if you haven't seen it, I am also hosting a giveaway and added a lot of my fave goodies to share, including one of the watercolor pans from Cloves and Honey, which was an exclusive in one of her sets. This giveaway package is an accumulation of stuff I have set aside over the year and it turned out it was nearly a 1,5 kg box full of stuff! Time to actually give it away to someone!! I have met so many wonderful creative people in my creative journey and this is just a small way to say thank you to everyone whom have been so supportive an encouraging. So hop on over to that post if you are interested in entering it.

Sharing this desk shot with my friends over at Julia's Blog for WOYWW this week. Finally another artsy desk shot to share. Share yours if you would like to join in the conversation and fun with other wonderful creative people.

2017/08/28

Hey everyone! Like I have announced over on my social hang outs, I have been working on an epic giveaway for you guys as gratitude for your support in my creative journey. I have gathered so many wonderful goodies for you which includes a TON of my favorite products which you can see below.

2017/08/25

Today I am sharing a journal page I have made a while back on the theme "what is home?"

I've moved from Amsterdam to Leiden now I think 12 years ago and it took me a while to call this city my home, but I do love it here now. I tried to convey my feelings for this city in this art journal spread. It is going to be a picture heavy post of details of this spread, so you'll see more after the cut.

2017/08/22

Today I am sharing the make of a card of which a similar one was published earlier this year in the in May. It's a bit of a personal story why I made this card and this is what I shared with the Craft Stamper's New Beginnings section of the magazine back in May:

What triggered me with this theme is the fact that to me every day is a new

beginning. With every day you can start a new and it's okay if you did "No Thing" and

just breathe. This card is designed to send someone comfort in difficult times, Like

when someone is suffering from a Burn-Out. The traditional "get well soon card" just

isn't what someone needs in that position and I am speaking from experience. The

sentiment "Just breathe, you are here" is so much kinder. It helps one to re-frame

one’s mind and begin again.

When you have suffered from a Burn-Out (like I have now 2 1/2 years ago) it is not in your healing process to receive cards like "hope you'll be your old-self soon" and "get well soon" because it actually works counter productive. Every one of us takes their own time to heal. So I am sharing the make of this card so that in case you wanted to make something similar to someone who needs to hear this message.

I started off with covering a gelli printed ghost print with disstress inks and blended them with a blending tool. The colors I chose were pickled raspberry, wild honey and shabby shutters. I thought they made a nice blend together.

Then I did some stamping with Indigo Blue Ledger & splats, coffee rings from Tim Holtz and spatter drops by Marianne Crafts stamps with Staz-On Royal Purple.

As my focal point I chose Marsha from Stampotique Originals because I like her and she will be pointing towards the sentiment. She is stamped in black so that when I cut her out and adhere her, the details like shoe laces will be there.

I colored her in with letraset promarkers (alcohol markers) on sticker paper.

Fussy cut her out and adhered to the page.

Grounded her with washi tape and the "you are here" is also a washi tape.

I really loved making this card design, it was such a calming and healing process. I hope this will also be the case for you and that you can send a card like this to someone whom needs to hear just this message.

2017/08/18

Today I wanted to share with you a fun and quirky art journal page I made using watercolors and the "magic ink" technique combined with stencils. It's a fairly simple process but you have to work quickly like I have described in that blogpost. I used india ink and red and orange fountain pen inks. Sadly memory fails me which fountain pen inks I used, but it were samples I needed to use up, I'm sure!

The sentiment is remixed from this Viva las VegaStamps! sentiment stamp and I have made it say "Shine like the FREAKING AWESOME SPARKLY RIDICULOUS SUPERNOVA-SELF you are meant to be" which I lined with Stabilo marks-all pencils in black and white.

2017/08/16

It's Wednesday and that means it's time for another fun challenge over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog! This week a new challenge theme has started and it's Inchie Art. What is an inchie? It is a piece of artwork made on 1x1 inch format and just like ATC's the materials you use does not matter, it's the size restriction that counts. So this was a hard challenge for me as I rarely make these and this past weekend I sat down and had an idea to make an activity cube/die with great Stampotique images! And the above activity cube was made!

I used a template for the cube, all the squares are one inch exactly. I have glued the printed cube template on an index card for some strength and then stamped the images you see above making sure that the activity for each image stays within the one inch square. The activities I portrait here are sleep, read, collage, color, go for a walk and prep work. The idea behind is, when I am stuck or listless, just roll the cube and do that activity to get into a different frame of mind.

So what do you think of this idea? If you create your own activity cube, let me know as I would love to see it! And any inchie art is welcome to be entered at our challenge so be sure to link up your new work and read the rules carefully so you won't end up being disqualified.

2017/08/15

Hi all, it's my turn over at the VLVS! blog and I made a little something for you to inspire you for our August Challenge. I have made an index sized art card inspired by the colors and imagery from our mood board below

Isn't it gorgeous and don't you just long for a summer sunset at the beach?

It has inspired me to make the following

I am just absolutely in love with that Fancy Mermaid, the large moon and all the mixed media journaling stamps from the latest release. I've mixed a few oldies too, like the sentiment which is is a part of Tired of trying to cram stamp, which I LOVE! A full list of stamps and materials used is (including a time to stamp process video!!) is to be seen at the VLVS! blog post.

Hope this will inspire you to play along with out monthly challenge where you could win some great quality rubber stamps!

2017/08/14

Hello my dear friends! With the summer holidays here I am slowing down my productivity and having a little hiatus from the weekly Mail Art Monday posts for august/september. This time is to relax, replenish and regroup to come back with more creativity in the fall. I plan on making some more Mail Art tutorials on my You Tube Channel like I did for the one above for Viva Las VegaStamps! A few months ago :)

Hope you enjoyed watching the process video and if you do I would appreciate a 'like' in the video and if you would like to follow my channel then you'd be notified when I have more process video's up (there are a bunch waiting in the editing line....)

Thanks so much for stopping by, your support means a lot! Have a wonderful summer and do drop by for my DT and art journal posts in the coming time :)

2017/08/11

I thought it would be fun to pair her with this phrase from phrase cube 3 by Terri Richardson and make a fun sarcastic card out of it :) The background is done with Brusho's over a script stencil and colored her with Wink of Stella and Luna markers from zig on sticker paper, fussy cut and adhered to the page. Patience is indeed a virtue, right?

2017/08/09

A few weeks ago I received a set of amazing shimmering watercolors I purchased from Cloves and Honey and finally got around playing with them. The Cup of Roses is a stamp I have received from my challenge winnings from STAMPlorations a few months ago and used an embossing resist technique to test the water colors. They are so vibrant and wonderful! The paper I used here is Van Gogh cold pressed 25% cotton water color paper which I purchased at TOWI in Leiden. Such a wonderful local art supply store I frequent and they have hidden gems! I also bought a bunch of old stock Schmincke water colors which I integrated in the palette above.

I was pleasantly surprised how the paper held up! Minimum buckling/warping, great flow of water and workable time is great as well! By the way, that tin is a DIY watercolor palette. And the tin was given away with a female hygine product! I think I am making so much better use of it now ;) I filled it with different brand watercolors. This size can fit 20 half pans to fill up the tin or 16 half pan and your travel water brush. THIS FITS IN YOUR BACK POCKET OR A SMALL PURSE! I'm trying to find a minimalist way of traveling with art supplies but still with enough colors on hand for our up coming vacation and I think I have found it :) Super excited to bring it with me on vacay!

Also another paper test I was looking forward to, is this Col-O-Ring by Ana from the Well Appointed Desk. Initially this booklet is made to use for your ink tests, mainly for fountain pen ink swabs to see how the properties of each ink behave. There are all sorts of great reviews out there and I esp. love this video from my friend Azizah (Gourmet Pens) which shows you how you can make ink swabs and how to use this little booklet for that. Because I have stocked up on Maruman Word Cards when they announced the discontinuation, I thought I could test and try different things with this beautiful hand cut and letter pressed booklet. So I did a watercolor and mixed media test over on my Instagram stories, showed the work in progress of the above little mixed media piece, which I called the 'SS Regina braving the storm'. Made the little boat from vintage postage stamps and I loved that the word Regina was used to indicate our queen back then. The paper holds up to mixed media quite well, I was very impressed to see! So you can try this booklet for different things also, little water color or Mixed Media work and even embroidery (I have used some black embroidery thread between the sails and the paper doesn't rip what I poked it with an embroidery needle!)

I absolutely LOVED playing around and testing these new products and am happy to support these small business owners whom are providing stellar quality products!

I'm also happy that the Col-O-Ring is now also accessibly available in the EU at Fontoplumo and thanks again Frank for providing this booklet for review :)

Sharing these desk shots over at Julia's Stamping Ground for WOYWW#427 - have a look and see more shared desk stories and maybe even share your own work in progress/desk shot to fellow deskers :) Missed you gals and I'll be over for a visit shortly!

2017/08/07

It's another beautiful Monday out and I'm sharing this postcard I made with a bunch of the new stamp releases from Stampotique Originals! I love using book pages in my postcards lately and the background is one I had in my stash a while, it's got left over paints from stencil wiped off it like the star you see on the top left. These new releases really do combine very will together!

2017/08/04

The really fun Whimsical Jester stamp and You are Beautiful phrase are my focal points. I have used some pigment powders, modeling paste, gelli printed deli papers and home made stencil for this piece. A full list of the stamps and materials used are listed below. I also have recorded the process video for this which you can see here on our Time2Stamp channel:

2017/08/03

Today I wanted to share a fun page I created in my spiral pocket art journal. I incorporated a bunch of different elements and experimenting with a little scrapbook lay-out style. Most of the elements I used are combined from different projects out of my "lefTOVERS-scrap box".

The background is made with Distress Oxide, I still have so many left from my very first play session with them, and stamped on it Indigo Blu Ledger, Tim Holz Coffee Rings and splatters, Large VLVS! Coffee rings and Joy Crafts script stamp. All stamped with Java dye ink from Ranger. Then I sprayed some Kiwi perfect pearl mist over it. IRL it does shine a lot more.

Then I built up the layers using die cuts, the coffee mug is from Stamplorations and one I cut from this project, some left over hearts from this project and used some left over papers from yesterday's project to stamp the sentiment on. Which is, as well as the bird, from Stampotique Originals.

I put in a little "remember" tag before the sentiment to make it a sentence. The bird is colored with letraset promarkers on sticker paper and fussy cut out.

I grounded Cocoa Bird on some washi tape and tape a little bit on the right top corner for some balance. Gave the hearts some shimmer with a wink of stella marker and called it done. I really love this page as I imagined the bird being a parrot, echoing this to people who want to talk to me before I had my morning coffee :D

2017/08/02

It's hard to choose a favorite among the august new releases as they are all super fun to work with, but the Hive Flower by Arwen McCullen would be my fave. Here I made a little note card and stamped it on a piece of Distress Oxidized backgroud. This was a combination of blue and green inks and I just love how these inks work so well together. I colored the flower with my Caran d'ache Pablo's and stamped the little bees on it which I then colored with Wink of stella markers for some shimmer. The edges are doodled with a Faber Castell Pitt marker. I just LOVE the combination of the bees and the hive flower! I also have been spotting bees back in the city again which is great! These little creatures do have a hard time and I am happy to see them in unexpected places.

In a small little lavender garden along the side walk...

and in poppies at the side of the tram/bus stop. I've read our country is making an effort to plant more flowers near the highway (the Honey Highway initiative) and are now initiatives in the city (like in Amsterdam) to plant flowers near tram stops to attract more honey bees to do their work. It's a beautiful effort which I hope will spread to other cities as well.

So an ode to the honey bee here for our SDC279 challenge in which you are invited to use animals/insects etc in your designs. There is also some exciting news which are going to be implemented from now on for the challenge;

People have been asking SODC to let them join our challenges on our Facebook group. Well, we are listening!! You can now join in our challenges on our Facebook group. We will be creating a photo album for each challenge, all you need to do is add your project to the proper photo album in order to join. We do encourage you to add your creations here on the blog but if you don't have a blog or don't know how to upload your photos to this blog, you can now join on Facebook.

So now there are two ways to join in and I hope you will join this fortnight's challenge as well :)